Banks face two different kinds of moral hazard problems: asset substitution by shareholders (e.g., making risky, negative net present value loans) and managerial rent seeking (e.g., investing in inefficient “pet” projects and consuming perquisites that yield private benefits). The privately...

We present an integrated theory of capital structure and dividend policy in which both financial policy choices are driven by the same underlying factors and jointly determined as implicit governance mechanisms to allocate control over real (project choice) decisions between managers and...

We study the effects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) on repurchases, leverage and investment. The TCJA generates tax windfalls through a repatriation tax cut and a corporate income tax cut. Using monthly repurchase data from SEC filings, we find the surge of repurchases after the TCJA...

We consider a model in which the threat of bank liquidations by creditors as well as equity-based compensation incentives both discipline bankers, but with different consequences. Greater use of equity leads to lower ex ante bank liquidity, whereas greater use of debt leads to a higher...

We develop a theory of optimal bank leverage in which the benefit of debt in inducing loan monitoring is balanced against the benefit of equity in attenuating risk-shifting. However, faced with socially-costly correlated bank failures, regulators bail out creditors. Anticipation of this...

We develop a theory of optimal bank leverage in which the benefit of debt in inducing loan monitoring is balanced against the benefit of equity in attenuating risk-shifting. However, faced with socially-costly correlated bank failures, regulators bail out creditors. Anticipation of this...

Payout policy is viewed as a dynamic complement of security design. Security design considerations suggest that firms should optimally use equity to finance assets that are ex ante informationally-sensitive. However, business operations gradually erode the informational sensitivity of a firm's...

It has long been argued that dividends are used as a signal of future earnings or as a means of distributing excess cash. However, the empirical tests of these two hypotheses have generated inconclusive results. One reason for these inconclusive results is that no model combines both the...

Moral hazard and disagreement are important economic frictions. How do their individual effects on economic behavior differ and how do these frictions interact when operating together? This paper addresses these questions by developing a canonical model of disagreement (generated by...

This paper develops and tests a new theoretical explanation for why a firm conducts open-market stock repurchases. Investors may disagree with the manager about the firm's investment projects. A repurchase causes a change in the investor base as investors who are more likely to disagree with the...